Easily the world's loveliest garden parasols

By David Nicholls

20 June 2017

Sunbeam Jackie was founded by artist couple
Charlie and Katy Napier who operate from their studio, a 12th
century grain store in Cornwall. The very first limited edition run
of parasols, made in 2011 for Glastonbury's artist warm-up area,
were spotted simultaneously by Mark Homewood the buyer for
Designers Guild, and Josie de Bank the creative director of the
music festival Bestival. Since then they've quietly
made a name for themselves as one of the most exclusive luxury
parasol and canopy makers around.Come with us on a tour
of the Cornwall studio of these purveyors of wonderfully decorative
handmade parasols

'We got the idea for the parasols from a scene in the Werner
Herzog film Cobra Verde, set in West
Africa. A tribal chief was being carried on a bejewelled palanquin.
I'd never seen anything like it before, so I contacted the Ghanaian
embassy and asked them about it. They were so helpful.'

A palanquin, it turns out, is a Ghanaian sedan chair
that often features a decorated parasol to shade the nobleman being
carried from the sun. While there may not be a huge market for
palanquins in Britain today - more's the pity - Charlie and Katy
figured there would surely be an appetite for
gorgeously decorative garden parasols. And they were
right.

Their Cornwall studio, delightfully named Dick and
Tom's Barn, used to be a grain store and stands in the middle
of five acres of pasture and oak woodland, with views of the Hayle
Estuary. 'It's rustic,' Charlie says. 'And not in the romantic
sense. We still find bits of grain here and there.'

The parasols are fashioned from handsome handmade ash
frames, stainless-steel mechanisms and a mix and match of vintage
fabrics. The ash components are machined by a local furniture
maker whom Charlie refers to as a 'timber magician' - when they
outsource work, it is always to local craftspeople. When these
parts arrive in the studio, Charlie sands
down each piece by hand, before applying Danish oil to
preserve the timber and give it a warm, grainy finish. He then
assembles the frame by hand. Each parasol has 72 rivets
and washers, 36 small nuts and bolts, and a
custom-made stainless-steel pin, the design of which is
inspired by the quick-release, drop-nose pins used in the maritime
industry.

Meanwhile, Katy 'lives among the vintage fabrics' at
the other end of the studio. They have an enormous collection
sourced from their favourite markets, car-boot sales and dealers
around the country. As the fabrics are vintage, no two Sunbeam
Jackie parasols are the same.

At the behest of Bruce Lepere, who
runs Liberty's oriental rugs and carpets department they now also
sell chairs and cushions. 'We're at an exciting stage
where we are trying different things,'
Charlie says. This includes taking on commissions from clients who
supply their own textiles.